, 1887-07-21
THE MIDDLE MILLION.
A Correct Glass OF New Yorkers That Is
Not Mentioned In Print.
Especial Correspondence1

Especial Correspondence
New YORK. July 1.
One million good, honest and steady going
people in this great city live unmentioned by
book or newspaper. They are neither high
enough nor low enough.
The sensational writer seizes on that only
which Is sensational; the stage presents only
that which is dramatic and startling; the
moralist points to the vice and crime, and the
financial writer knows only the millionaires.
SO in all the presentations of metropolitan
life We find "The Villains of New York, n
"The Dark Side Of New York" "The Kings
Of Wall Street, )" 1.-THE Leaders of Fashion, y
the great singers, actresses and acrobats, the
eloquent orators anu eminent preachers.
And outside of all these are the middle mil.
lion-too honest and pure to figure In the DO
lice records, too independent to be classed
with the mendicants, not rich enough to DO
known in ''the street." and never-no, never
heard Of on Fifth avenue, at Newport or at
Saratoga.
As the remote American never sees the
middle million mentioned in the prints, he
unconsciously forms habit Of thinking they
do not exist. He has vivid idea of New
Yorks vicious and criminal classes, of her
extremely poor, her amazingly wealthy and
her desperately wicked; he realizes the two
extremes of society because they are continu-
ally presented to him. BY similar process
we have arrived at the use of common
phrase-French vices; the French talk of
them, therefore they are peculiarly French,
but as they are rarely mentioned in England,
1t is presumed that there they do not exist.
Hence, to avoid like misapprehension here,
let us briefly but positively insist on the exist
ence of the middle million in New York city,
fnt. 4. 4.
the supper ten thousand" or the slower
classes"
As one walks through the city he probably
sees ten or twenty of the middle million to
one of any other class. Indeed know men
who have lived in the city forty years and
never saw noted criminal or fnancer,
never were in n fashionable party or police
court, never starred on the avenue or
Summed on Cherry street. One may live a
long life in this city and associate with none
hut middle class people 1 see them toing
by tens Of thousands in the great manufac-
tories, hauling and packing for the whole
salers, running the thousands of re.
tail stores, managing the tens of thou
sands of details in business requiring
small capital. All the many hundreds of
school teachers in the city are Of the middle
million, and nearly all the preachers, Journal
lists, printers, clerks, bookkeepers and $4,000
women who earn their own living by work
above the grade Of the washtub. They have
their own societies, churches, reading clubs.
social circles and scientific coteries, and
manage to have great deal OF enjoyment
too, though rarely mentioned in the papers.
The greatest drawback to the happiness of
the middle million may be summed up in one
word-uncertainty. Not per cent. own the
houses they live in, and that is always an
evil. Though above want, very few of them
are rich enough to remove at short notice to
another locality and establish home there.
The loss OF place or work is All ever present
danger Now and then ones foot slips, and
he and his family slide down into that awful
gulf where welter the hopelessly and miser-
ably poor.
New 1orks prominence as commercial city
causes many to ignore the fact that it is also
one OF the greatest manufacturing cities of
the world. And though we hear much
especially in "hard times" of the sorrows of
the unemployed, yet it is rare that one finds
a good man idle Take sugar refining as an
instance; it ranked ninth among our national
industries in 1880, and nearly 100000 tons of
sugar are refined yearly in this city and
vicinity. This is but one of many industries
in which employment is regular and strikes
rare. The strike creates sensation; the in
dustries employing ten or twenty times as
many who do not strike appear only in dry
reports, and do not impress the imagination.
or the 10000 people or thereabouts in this
city-that is, immediately on Manhattan
not more than SO, 900 can he
classed as wealthy. Perhaps $500 belong
to the rniserably poor, the outcasts and the
criminals All the rest are In the great stay
inG class. the middle million.
u.u.essnnuneneux J. a. HEADrA.